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Bug 5266 - XSDL?
Summary: XSDL?
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: XML Schema
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Structures: XSD Part 1 (show other bugs)
Version: 1.1 only
Hardware: Macintosh All
: P1 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
QA Contact: XML Schema comments list
URL:
Whiteboard: terminology cluster
Keywords: resolved
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2007-11-12 15:27 UTC by Norman Walsh
Modified: 2008-02-08 23:24 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description Norman Walsh 2007-11-12 15:27:30 UTC
Given that most of the world refers to W3C XML Schema using either of the abbreviations "WXS" or "XSD", it seems to border on the perverse for the
WG to adopt "XSDL" as a standard acronym. Please, pick one of the other two
instead.
Comment 1 Michael Kay 2007-11-12 16:39:55 UTC
Personal response: A quick google suggests that the acronym WXS is very rarely used and is not widely recognised. It's not normal practice for languages to have names that are associated with the organisation that specified them, except to distinguish variants of existing languages, such as ECMAScript. And having a "W" that stands for "W3C" in which "W3" stands for "World Wide Web" seems inelegant. (In any case, W is so unpronouncable...)

XSD is certainly used quite widely, but usually as a contraction of "XML Schema Definition" (which might mean either a schema or a schema document, it's not clear which). It's not usually used to refer to the language as such. We wanted a name that clearly referred to the language rather than to the schemas that are defined using the language; I don't think XSD would have met that criterion. XSD as a back-formation to describe the objects that are defined using the language now becomes logical, though we're not using it ourselves.

Also, having finally decided on a name for the language, changing our minds and deciding on a different one would throw away the last chance we have to establish some uniformity. 
Comment 2 David Ezell 2008-01-24 23:16:00 UTC
 RESOLUTION: The abbreviated name for our language will be XSD, not XSDL.  Editors' discretion whether to draft note explaining intended uses of that abbreviation.  Namespace prefixes for our own markup and datatypes will be normalized to xs:"
Comment 3 C. M. Sperberg-McQueen 2008-02-05 02:32:10 UTC
A wording proposal for this issue (among others) was sent to the XML
Schema WG on 4 February 2008.

http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2004/06/xmlschema-1/structures.consent.200802.html (member-only link)

For some issues, the proposal is effectively to make no change;
see the Status section of the proposal for the specifics.
Comment 4 C. M. Sperberg-McQueen 2008-02-08 23:24:48 UTC
During its telcon today, the XML Schema WG accepted the 'Structures
Omnibus 2' proposal, which includes changes intended to resolve this
issue.  (Or, for some issues, contains the editors' proposal that the
issue should be closed without further changes.)
http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2004/06/xmlschema-1/structures.consent.200801.html (member-only link)

Accordingly, I'm marking the issue resolved.

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